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Aug. 29th, 2010 07:40 pmI'm watching the award winning documentary "The Cove" that's being aired on Animal Planet tonight and I can honestly say that I've seen some evil shit in my time but nothing compares to the Japanese fishermen in Taiji who routinely slaughter 23,000 dolphins every year. Mind you these are the ones not sold into slavery in places like SeaWorld. The man who's leading the charge against this is Ric O'Barry, the trainer for the original Flipper who realized keeping dolphins in captivity was wrong and has been crusading against that and their killing ever since.
A small team of incredibly brave people got together to journey to Taiji to set up hidden cameras and underwater microphones to capture what the government of Japan was determined to keep the world from knowing. The fishermen are actually planning to give the dolphin meat away to schools for kids' lunches. Mind you, even removing the basic moral horror of this, these animals are full of mercury, dangerous amounts of it. Do you know what mercury does? If not look up "Minamata Disease", a town in Japan that allowed a local corporation to dump mercury into the bay an essentially poison its own people.
One of the free divers described watching one of the babies trying desperately to escape the nets strung around the cove, they show you the actual video as she, in tears, describes what happened. The terrified, desperate little baby is swimming for its life and bleeding out. Finally too weak to go on it takes one last breath and sinks under the water. I'm still in tears, I just...I just don't comprehend how anyone can do this sort of thing.
I'm glad I'm watching it, as painful as it is to see, I needed to know this, I need to do something about it and I hope many others will too. I'm delighted Animal Planet is airing it and even happier that they're airing a series featuring Ric O'Barry called "Blood Dolphins". I only hope that incredible numbers of viewers will see this and do something, whether it's no longer spending money in places like SeaWorld, offering donations to organizations like Earth Island Institute, or just spreading the word about what's happening.
A small team of incredibly brave people got together to journey to Taiji to set up hidden cameras and underwater microphones to capture what the government of Japan was determined to keep the world from knowing. The fishermen are actually planning to give the dolphin meat away to schools for kids' lunches. Mind you, even removing the basic moral horror of this, these animals are full of mercury, dangerous amounts of it. Do you know what mercury does? If not look up "Minamata Disease", a town in Japan that allowed a local corporation to dump mercury into the bay an essentially poison its own people.
One of the free divers described watching one of the babies trying desperately to escape the nets strung around the cove, they show you the actual video as she, in tears, describes what happened. The terrified, desperate little baby is swimming for its life and bleeding out. Finally too weak to go on it takes one last breath and sinks under the water. I'm still in tears, I just...I just don't comprehend how anyone can do this sort of thing.
I'm glad I'm watching it, as painful as it is to see, I needed to know this, I need to do something about it and I hope many others will too. I'm delighted Animal Planet is airing it and even happier that they're airing a series featuring Ric O'Barry called "Blood Dolphins". I only hope that incredible numbers of viewers will see this and do something, whether it's no longer spending money in places like SeaWorld, offering donations to organizations like Earth Island Institute, or just spreading the word about what's happening.
